Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Chris Pine, and Keira Knightley star in this “reboot” of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn’t based on any Clancy novel. Even when the four previous Jack Ryan movies appeared, loosely based on Clancy’s work, Clancy wasn’t happy with the results. Clancy told the Washington Post that “giving your book to Hollywood is like turning your daughter over to a pimp.” Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a typical action movie. Chris Pine plays intelligence analyst Jack Ryan as a smart and brave operative. Keira Knightley plays Jack Ryan’s fiancée who doesn’t know he’s in the CIA. Kevin Costner plays Jack Ryan’s boss. Kenneth Branagh plays the Russian Bad Guy and directs the movie. There are explosions, car chases, some computer hacking, and a cool motorcycle. Very vanilla, very predictable. I had a free ticked to this movie. GRADE: B
I really like Branagh and so will probably go see it for him and maybe Costner, who seems to be riding the crest of a a new wave of interest after Hatfield & McCoys and the Superman movie – sorry it’s not any better though – thanks George.
Sergio, I was hoping for more from JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. The talented cast could have done a lot better if they had a good script.
Thank goodness for free tickets, eh, George? From the trailers I could see this would be a small screen film, and with a very long Netflix queue, it will be a long time until I see it, if ever. I have thought about trying one of the Clancy books these are based on.
The reviews haven’t been too bad but I still think I have had my fill of this sort of movie. I like Chris Pine in the Star Trek movies though so if we get some bad weather…
You pretty much summed up the way I felt about it. I have a cousin who is a big Clancy fan and he wanted to see this despite knowing it would annoy him. We all came away from it feeling it was just okay. The cast is dynamite and I liked them all but they aren’t given all that much to do. So much of the movie is spent trying to set up various parts of the story that, in the end, all of those parts feel as if they were given short shrift. I think Pine will be a fine Jack Ryan if they decide to do more of these films, but it would be a shame if the writing continues to be, as you accurately described it, vanilla.
Rick, I’d recommend reading and seeing THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Clancy’s books swelled to mammoth size over the years and became half as good.
Patti, JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT follows all the spy movie cliches. But the cast is good though they’re not given enough to do.
Carl, we are in complete agreement. Good cast, vanilla script. I liked Chris Pine as Jack Ryan. If someone gives me another free ticket, I would go see the sequel.
A rating of “B” from George is a C or C minus for most of us.
I notice that Clancy was happy to “turn [his] daughter over to a pimp” for the big bucks, repeatedly.
I’ll wait until it hits cable.